Page 23 of Forged in Peril

“Let’s do this,” Bristol said, stabbing the key into the ignition slot.

“Wait,” he said, laughing at the look of sheer determination that had appeared on her face. “The first thing we’re going to do is teach you how to work the clutch.”

CHAPTER

EIGHT

BRISTOL

There was a knock at her office door, and Bristol looked up from her desk, thankful for the excuse to give her tired eyes a break from the dense contract she’d been reading for the last forty-five minutes.

She’d been right.

Jaclyn had returned from her meeting just after lunch time, dumped a pile of paperwork on Bristol’s desk, and headed back out the door once again, probably to find even more nightmarishly boring legal writing that she needed her new paralegal to summarize.

Now, apparently, she was back yet again, though with it being so close to what was theoretically quitting time, Bristol hoped that she’d save her demands for the morning.

“Hey, Bristol, sorry to interrupt,” Jaclyn said, leaning against the doorframe.

She was dressed in an expensive-looking cashmere sweater, a knit scarf, and heeled brown boots, and she held a black satchel under her free arm. She wore no makeup today, however, and Bristol noticed that without mascara her eyelashes were such a light blonde that they were almost invisible against her icy blue eyes.

“Not at all,” Bristol said, smiling up at her boss. “Can I help you with something? I’ll probably stick around here for a couple more hours, anyway.”

Jaclyn gave a heavy sigh. “I appreciate your dedication, but you won’t be staying late tonight, I’m afraid. Judge Hammerstein’speople just called to let me know that we’re now due in court tomorrow instead of Monday, and he’s slotting our preliminary hearing in before his first trial.”

Bristol’s heart sank. She’d spent most of the day on disastrous driving lessons and a takeout lunch with Cameron before he’d finally managed to convince her to replace Boris with a much newer and fully mechanically sound Taurus.

She’d expected to have tomorrow and the weekend to finish her mountain of paperwork, not to mention prepare for the preliminary hearing. Had she known it was going to get bumped up, she would have let Cameron buy the ridiculous Jeep if it had meant getting back to work at a reasonable time.

“Well, that’s not great,” she said at last, resisting the urge to apologize for her light work day. Cameron was not only her boss, but Jaclyn’s, as well. There was no point in getting in trouble when she hadn’t been the one who decided to play hooky in the first place.

Jaclyn brushed a few strands of her long blonde hair out from where they had become tangled in her scarf. “Not exactly a lot of warning, I know. I hate to ask this, but I need you to be here by six thirty tomorrow, at the latest. I want some time to go over everything together before we get up there in front of Hammerstein.”

Perfect.

Her first time in a courtroom representing Forge Brothers Security, and she’d be not only unprepared, but barely conscious.

“No problem,” she said as Jaclyn let out a yawn, trying to convince herself as much as her boss. “I’ll be here even before that, if I can. At least we won’t have to worry about traffic.”

“Not me,” Jaclyn said, giving her a rare smile. “I usually walk, actually. My condo is just a couple of streets over.”

Bristol smiled back. She’d had no idea until now where Jaclyn lived.

Though she felt as though she was beginning to gain the lawyer’s trust, she really knew very little about her. Jaclyn Mercier was basically the polar opposite of Grace Hinton. Bristol got the feeling that no one else in the office knew her much better than she did.

“Well, I guess some of this stuff will have to be dealt with tomorrow afternoon and over the weekend,” she said, gesturing toward the half-read briefs, open case law books, and typed passages waiting on her computer screen.

Jaclyn nodded. “I know there aren’t too many hours left before morning, but secure these files, go home, and try to get some sleep. I’ll see you bright and early.”

Jaclyn gave a quick wave as she disappeared back into the main office and then out into the hall, the sound of her boots trailing away as Bristol began tucking away files and shutting down her computer.

A few minutes later, she pulled out of the parking garage in her as-yet-unnamed new car, thankful for the extra security detail that FBS had been posting all week. She’d also been parking closer to the stairwell entrance rather than in the more isolated corner where the vandalism had taken place.

Now that her car wasn’t quite so out of place, she didn’t mind the company.

As she made her way through the evening traffic and out onto the now-quiet highway that led toward home, she couldn’t help but to enjoy the way the car handled compared to her old hunk of junk. She still felt guilty that it had been given to her, but ultimately, she was going to have to set her pride aside and be thankful.

She needed to be able to get to and from work with some level of independence, at least while she was living all the way out in Silver Grove, and especially on nights like this when unexpected demands came up without warning.

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